The present invention relates to a printing system, and more particularly to a user interface having an operator notation tool tip for navigating and controlling a printing system to generate documents received from one or more input units including a computer network, scanner, modem, etc.
Present and future high capacity printing systems are intended to provide an operator or user with as many job programming options and selections as reasonably possible. Further, operators wish to choose from a very large variety of stock. Stock is the print media or support material on which prints are made. The number of print media choices is very large considering the great number of different sheet sizes, colors, and types that are used by customers today. The number is even larger due to the printing needs of different foreign countries.
Since the operator or user wishes to offer a wide variety of printing options to customers and complete customer orders as quickly as possible, minimizing the interruption of print jobs is a very important priority. By replenishing supplies such as stock and toner in a timely fashion, the utilization of high capacity printing systems can be maximized.
A large amount of information concerning the status of the current print job and the requirements of requested print jobs, which have not yet been performed, is required to maximize the utilization of the printing system. In order for the operator to more efficiently utilize the printing system to perform a large number of print jobs with as few interruptions as possible, there is a need for a user friendly tool which can provide the operator with information regarding the printing supplies available for completing print jobs. Further, there is a need for a user friendly tool which permits operators to create their own tool to identify certain supplies, which are repeatedly used for print jobs, which may or may not have been listed by the manufacturer in a stock library of the user interface.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, a graphical user interface provides stock profiles to be used by a printing system on a display screen comprising a depiction of a stock library including stock icons on the display screen, a cursor highlighting stock icons, and an operator notation tool tip identifying stocks in the stock library when stock icons are highlighted. A graphical user interface for associating a tray with stock from the stock library displayed on a display screen comprising a depiction of a printing system shown on the display screen including at least one tray icon, a depiction of a pathway access window including a stock library icon, a depiction of a stock library including stock icons on the display screen, an operator notation tool tip identifying stocks in the stock library when stock icons are highlighted, and means for dragging one of the stock icons into the one tray icon to associate the one stock with the one tray.
A printing system for printing image data received from a computer network, scanner or other image data generating device on a support material, comprising: a supply unit having a plurality of feeders, wherein each feeder has at least one tray for storing support material; a controller including a system controller processing the received image data, and a user interface comprising: a depiction of a stock library including stock icons on the display screen, a cursor highlighting stock icons, and an operator notation tool tip identifying stocks in the stock library when stock icons are highlighted; a print engine including a charging unit charging a surface of a photoconductive belt, at least one exposure unit exposing a photoconductive belt to create an electrostatic latent image based on the received image data at the direction of the system controller, at least one developer unit having charged toner particles, which are attracted to the electrostatic latent image, a transfer unit receiving support material and transferring the toner from the photoreceptor belt to the support material, a fuser assembly receiving the support material from the transfer unit and permanently affixing the toner to the sheet of support material, and a cleaning unit cleaning the photoreceptor belt; and a finishing unit, coupled to the print engine, the finishing unit comprising at least one of a stacker, binder, stapler and inserter.
A method for associating a tray in a printing system with a stock, comprising the steps of: accessing a stock library, searching the stock library for the stock, creating a new stock profile and an operator tool tip associated with the stock profile when the search is unsuccessful, and associating the new stock profile with the tray in the printing system.